


look again, from different eyes

by colormemotional



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon - Musical, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I AM SORRY, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, alexander is having problems as usual, eliza schuyler deserves someone better, happy holidays ya salamis, john's accepting his death like "ehh coolio", lee should've died, the "you can see everyone's death date but ur own" universe, unfinished kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 05:27:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13229010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colormemotional/pseuds/colormemotional
Summary: (They are all aware of the ugly death dates- every soldier in the army wears one. Sometimes before a battle, Alexander will watch nervous men fidget in their clothing, aware they will die in it from the concerned glances others give. Aware but never sure. Aware but hoping the dates lied for once in a lifetime. Alexander remembers thinking the same when his mother had fallen ill just weeks before the numbers upon her chest would end.)





	look again, from different eyes

**Author's Note:**

> this is the one thing from tumblr that said "au where everyone can see your death date but yourself" don't know where it came from. it's also musical canon, not historical canon(for the most part)  
> this is also unfinished?? i worked on it for so long i got tired of it(weird) and now i can't get myself to write a suitable ending.   
> it was beta'd (for once) by my dearest friend. have a nice time reading! pls leave a kudo and comment if you'd like!!

When Alexander meets John Laurens, the first thing he sees is his wide smile, too big and too fearless for the world around him. The second thing he sees is the numbers displayed across his lanky body- _ -August 27th, 1782 _ \--in striking red. Then Hamilton blinks, and they are no more. He shakes hands with John, skin not as callous as his own but not exactly soft either, and sits down with him. His friends, Mulligan and Lafayette, both sport dates long after Laurens’ with seemingly knowing grace. 

Alexander feels warm as the trio spits at him laughable tales of women and wars. Burr, the man who’d brought him to this tavern, rolls his eyes and leaves soon after. They progressively get drunker as the night seeps deeper, and soon Lafayette is only speaking his native French in slurred rambles, Mulligan is damn near crying of laughter at the slightest sentence, and Laurens is leaning his full weight on Hamilton’s thin shoulder. Yes, Laurens, who sat too close even when sober, whose jokes bordered on flirting, leant up against Alex like he was a sturdy wall, face hidden somewhere in the crook of his neck. He says something, gigging maliciously, about taking Alexander home with him, and the two are gone.

Though thoroughly inebriated and stuck on the shape of Laurens’ lips, he can think of nothing but how fast six years go by. 

\--  
  


Washington is serious, taciturn, towering. He is also the General, essentially everyone’s boss, and his word goes above all. Hamilton hates him some days and loves him most. All men under his command are afraid of him. Hamilton sees his blinding  _ 1799  _ in intervals and fears the time war takes more.

Laurens laughs when he tells him so, one of the few things whispered while they hold each other in the dark, but it is salted with something more. Hamilton blinks through the pitch black night at his Dear’s face to see the neon  _ 1782  _ like stars in the moonlight. He looks again, another angle, and the numbers are replaced by bright eyes instead. 

\--  
  


(They are all aware of the ugly death dates- every soldier in the army wears one. Sometimes before a battle, Alexander will watch nervous men fidget in their clothing, aware they will die in it from the concerned glances others give. Aware but never sure. Aware but hoping the dates lied for once in a lifetime. Alexander remembers thinking the same when his mother had fallen ill just weeks before the numbers upon her chest would end.)

\--

There is a ball in the winter of 1780, and Philip Schuyler is inviting soldiers to enjoy the festivities, take a break from the wartime struggle. Burr manages to get Hamilton to go, but at the price of bringing Laurens too. It is his last winter up east, after all. Burr protests allowing the man attend with them, then he blinks once, does that one  _ look  _ Alexander contorts his face into everytime he sees a date too, and waves his earlier worries away.  _ Why not _ , Burr sighs flippantly,  _ Life’s too short to argue with everything.  _ And if Hamilton avoids Laurens’ confused stare afterwards, it’s nobody’s business. 

He knows, immediately after locking eyes with her, that Eliza Schuyler will always be too good for him. But she’s totally infatuated with him from the start, and Alexander tries to ignore the intimidating  _ November 9th, 1854 _ written across her forehead as he admires her black eyes. Nothing like Laurens. His love has eyes like forests which spark like matches and two years to his name. She has eyes like beads like calm icy waters and so much she hasn’t done yet. 

In the middle of the evening, he finds his John consuming too much alcohol and decides to have him meet the ever charming Schuyler. He flicks his eyes at her, weary at her staggering death date, and she does about the same. Then Eliza eyes Alexander, glances back at John. They both watch as her face fills with understanding. Hamilton can almost see her mouth a little  _ I’m so sorry  _ but she stops herself short. 

\--  
  


John’s burning with hatred, with anger, with respecting his honor, when he raises the gun. Charles looks as if he’s going to piss himself. When the man falls, sinking heavily onto the dusty ground, Hamilton starts to believe the numbers aren’t always right. John gives him a look, thinking the same thing. They hug, grinning from ear to ear. Maybe John will live longer. Maybe everyone will stop looking at them funny when they walk around together. 

Washington comes out, fire in his eyes, but all Hamilton can think about is staying latched to his Laurens’ side forever. 

The next week, they hear Lee is said to be alive. Alexander can’t sleep right for days, asking a godless sky why the world must be this way. Wants to spit on the man’s face, shoot him again. Not to defend Washington’s honor, but because he has no right to live only two months longer than John anyways. 

\--  
  


_ I love you I love you I love you,  _ Hamilton blatantly whispers into John’s skin, kissing every inch he can. The older man laughs, quiet and lovely, and holds Hamilton a little tighter than before. He’s happy, he’s joking, he hasn’t done so in weeks, but he does not understand.  _ My love will never leave you,  _ Hamilton explains, he is really trying here. John must know how much he cares before he leaves. John must know how much he needs to hurry back to New York and not die, to defy the bloody  _ 1782  _ that haunts Hamilton’s eyelids like ghosts. John pets at his hair, avoids the other’s eyes like fire.  _ And I you, dear boy. You will be the last thing in my mind.  _

\--

Lafayette raises a bottle of cheap wine above his head like a fist of defiance.  _ To the revolution!  _ He cracks out in sharp, accented English. He pours Alexander a glass and drinks his own serving straight from the bottle. Alexander slams it back in one gulp. He’s usually not much of a drinker but the fateful year of 1781 will be leaving them in only two days and he just isn’t ready yet. He doesn’t think he ever will be. 

His friend notices and wraps an arm around him.  _ The best die first so they’ll never become the worst,  _ he insists. Alexander laughs, wiping a tear escaping from his eye. Leave in to Lafayette to the wisest, younger than them all. 

\--  
  


Philip giggles in his arms, throwing his chubby baby arms about and wiggling delightfully. Eliza coos at him beside Hamilton, reaching out to poke at his stomach with her pointer finger. He’s beautiful. He’s their child. Hamilton has never wanted anything so great, but here it is. Philip. They sit with the tiny baby and talk to him of their aspirations for his life, how they will raise him, what school they will enroll him in. Philip watches them with wide eyes through it all, not understanding a thing. Then it happens. 

Alexander sees it with a flash; a big, almost too big for the child’s body, _ November 24th, 1801 _ . He turns to Eliza when he does, and she to him. They stare at each other, speechless. She must see his date too, because her eyes unfocus on his face with that  _ look.  _ She suddenly lets out a loud sob, too big to be real. Alexander blinks.  _ Nineteen.  _ He will only be nineteen. Their soon will never have a chance at adulthood, at marriage. At a shot. And Eliza will widow before long. 

\--  
  


They are getting dressed for bed when she brings it up, untying the white lace in her hair. He is slipping on a night shirt, back to her front. There’s something in the way the candles in their bedroom glow that night that makes him want to believe when he turns around, Laurens will be in her place instead. It is just a passing thought. Most days, there are many of these about the freckled man. 

_ I just want you to know,  _ she says,  _ I just want you to know that even if he dies young, it does not mean we’ve failed. It does not mean there is nothing else.  _ Alexander sees the wooden crib in the corner of their room. Philip sleeps soundly inside it. Eliza’s voice resounds in his head. What does she believe? What will happen to his son? What will happen to him?

\--  
  


He hates Thomas Jefferson. He hates him like Lee, like the way Eliza has taken to looking at him when he works himself too hard. Like Laurens’ death. He hates the way Jefferson smiles at Washington, reptile like. He hates the way he looks at Madison, looks at Burr, looks at the approaching election. Alexander wants him gone. 

And that’s the only opinion of Jefferson he has for awhile. Until one morning, when Hamilton notices the polished gold locket tucked not-so-carefully into his jacket. Being the person he is, he brings it up during one of their many arguments. Jefferson recoils, shutting his mouth.  _ If you must know,  _ he growls, pulling the charm out and flicking the heart open,  _ it’s a photo of my late wife. I like to appreciate my loved ones, unlike you.  _ Just like that, he slams the brass closed and leaves the room. Hamilton is speechless. Not because Jefferson opened up so easily, but because of the cursive  _ died September 9th, 1782  _ he caught written under the profile of the young woman. His thoughts drift to Laurens, to Lee, to wondering just how many people can die in a year. 

\--  
  


It isn’t right. Nothing is right anymore. He just wants something to numb the pain. The one Laurens left behind, the one Eliza would usually ice. But she is gone, and he is here regretting not leaving with her. Maria is so pretty in candlelight, curls reminding him of lost love and dark eyes of his cunning wife. She is, thankfully, haunted with a death date he cannot relate to anything. All he feels around her is enveloping heat which isn’t pleasant, but blocks out the chanting of  _ 1782  _ and  _ only nineteen  _ which plagues him.

\--  
  


Aaron grows angrier with him over time. Frustrated. He calls Alexander impatient, ruinous, bastard, orphan, son of a whore. One time, during a heated discussion about the war, he even calls Alexander a sodomite. Nothing he hasn’t heard before. The man blanches over hearing about Alexander’s meeting with the Virginians. There’s a scary glint to Burr’s eyes,  something the other man cannot comprehend but it fills his bones with anticipation.  _ You get nothing if you wait for it, Burr,  _ Alexander chuckles, pushing past him. Aaron clenches his hands into hard fists, looking as if he will finally fight back against the constant barrier from power that has haunted his life since the late 70’s.  _ If you stand for nothing, what do you fall for?  _

\--

The old General looks even older now. He looks up at Alexander from his desk, wrinkles exposed by the light of the lone candle in his office. His greying hair is tucked evenly inside of his wing. Hamilton wants to sit also because of the news he just recieved. Jefferson will be running for president. Washington is going home.  _ Pick up a pen, start writing.  _ He closes his eyes and he feels like he’s back in the general’s tent, twenty years old and just given his first stack of letters to translate. He remembers--briefly--looking up at His Excellency and seeing the crimson _ December 14th, 1799  _ for the first time. It is 1797 now. Where did the time go? 

John Adams is elected president instead. The only good thing about the entire situation is Jefferson lost. In reality, he hates Adams more than Jefferson, but at least the man is a federalist. 

\--  
  


(This isn’t a good idea. It’s never a good idea to expose oneself, as far as Hamilton has learned. But is it not better than others exposing you first? He can vividly feel his mother smacking him on the back of the head like she did whenever he’d act up as a child. Hear Laurens saying Eliza doesn’t deserve him, that he will never forgive him for doing this. Jefferson cackling in his face, a smug grin across his features.  _ You never be any better than where you came from.  _ Hamilton blots the last period of the last sentence. He will never be president now.)

\--  
  


_ How could you?! _ Eliza screams, throwing the pamphlet into the fireplace.  _ Now I know why you’re going to die so young!  _ Hamilton steps away, looking like his world has shattered around him. Eliza, despite how angry she is, closes a hand over her mouth after she says it, eyes widening in regret. Hamilton feels tears escaping his eyes and before he knows it, he lets out a large sob. Eliza runs upstairs and slams the large door behind her, a message to not follow. Alexander feels weak in the knees. He falls into a chair, salty tears blurring his vision as he does so. The fire under the mantle roars before him, eating up his misdeed like a lion might a helpless bird. If only that was the only copy, and the rest of the town wasn’t reading the words right now. 

There is nothing. Alexander feels like he is in the hurricane again, but instead of water drowning him it is his own words. 

 


End file.
